Scar
by Saturniia
Summary: Based off the movie The Santa Clause. He's the only one old enough to remember. She's the only one odd enough to care...
1. In which Bernard is ordered on sabbatica...

"Scar"  
  
Author: Saturniia  
Fandom: The Santa Clause  
Category: Angst, Humor(ish), self-aware, Mary-Sue, NOT romance and that's the whole point...  
Rating: PG-13  
Summary: He's the only one old enough to remember. She's the only one odd enough to care. So when Santa needs to know what's bothering his Head Elf, what does he do but send Bernard to the only person who'll listen?  
Disclaimer: If it belongs to Disney, I'm just borrowing it. If it looks like a song lyric, it belongs to Def Leppard but I own a copy of the CD. If it reminds one of a certain New York city, that's because I'm at school. If it reminds one of oneself or of one of your friends, chances are good I know someone exactly like you. Everything else, including the plot, should be mine only. This story will eventually deal with controversial issues and on occasion (but not now) dip into a hard "R" rating if I stay on-subject, so read with caution.  
  
  
Chapter 1  
******  
  
"You can't be serious!" Bernard raged. "It's never been done before! It's preposterous! If you make me do this, I'll... I'll...  
  
"Quit?" Scott Calvin, the current Santa Claus, supplied.  
  
"Don't be ridiculous!" Bernard gasped. "You know I love my work. Why would I have a problem with it? Why would I quit?"  
  
"You tell me," Santa challenged.  
  
The two men, had been going around in circles like this for the past twenty minutes. For every protest the younger-looking elf voiced, the white-haired man countered with an equally compelling counter-argument. Whether it be about the climate of the area (most parts of the world are too warm for a Christmas elf's sensitivities), or how Bernard would hide his ears, pay for things, get a job, or drive (for Santa had made it quite clear that magic is not an acceptable mode of transportation for non-believers) . . . Santa won on all fronts. Bernard would in fact join the world at large after the United States' college winter holiday, no thanks necessary.  
  
Not that Bernard would ever thank the younger man for the break he supplied his second-in- command. It wasn't by any real mercy save that of curiosity that Santa gave the elf a leave of sabbatical from the North Pole. There was something about the Pole's history that Bernard wasn't telling him, and Santa would be a fool if he simply let the elf drop the subject without saying anything. Frankly, a break from the stress would probably do the trick to get the dark- haired elf talking. Work was, as it had for the past 1,800 years, running him into the ground. It wasn't that Bernard didn't love his position or the younger elves, for it was quite the contrary. All filled a similar portion of his heart as his own siblings once had, long ago. They were all dead now, of course, but what could one do?  
  
"What indeed?" Bernard muttered angrily two weeks later, riffling through a bag stuffed with everything he'd need immediately, and enchanted to dispose materials as were needed throughout the school term. He was enrolling in a small liberal arts college about half an hour outside of New York City where again, no thanks were necessary. Santa Claus himself had already picked the courses out himself.  
  
"At least most of the damned classes have either to do with lit, history, or aesthetics," Bernard muttered, switching his cap with a black suede one of similar style he found in the bag underneath some Polarfleece sweaters, two pairs of blue jeans, three out of twenty pairs of modern underwear (boxers, if you're curious), and enough money to take care of his laundry and books for the semester. He was already wearing one of the twenty pairs of underwear, another pair of jeans, a red turtleneck under a black button-down corduroy jacket, and black custom-made boots.  
  
He sighed, "It'll be a snap."  
  
"Hi, Bernard," Judy chirped, coming into his room when his back was turned.  
  
The older elf jumped about a foot in the air, and whirled on his heels to face the girl-elf.  
  
"Oh," he muttered, relieved. "It's you."  
  
"Who else?" She asked, giggling as she set a steaming cup of hot cocoa down on his bedside table.  
  
"Nothing," Bernard snapped. "Nothing and no one."  
  
Noting Judy's hurt expression, he relented.  
  
"I'm sorry, baby sis," he sighed, using his favorite nickname for the "Naughty-and-Nice" elf. He sat down on the edge of his bed and pulled the smaller elf to him for a quick hug. "I've just been really tense lately, what with Christmas just past and the baby coming soon and all."  
  
"Yeah?" Judy asked. She hugged him back before pulling away and adding, "well, at least you get a vacation. All hell's gonna break loose when Junior arrives."  
  
"Think Curtis's going to try to find a baby clause or something of the sort?" Bernard speculated.  
  
"He won't have to look too hard," Judy shot back.  
  
"Huh?" Bernard inquired, letting his brain take a couple seconds to process the joke.  
  
"Oh!" He concluded with a chuckle.  
  
If he could be honest, though, he'd miss this room he hated so much. The walls were littered with sketches and blueprints he'd created and accumulated through the centuries. At various points among tin soldiers, racing-cars, rocking horses, and velveteen rabbits, the bright eyes of Curtis, Judy, and the rest of his "brothers and sisters" stared back at him. The floor was padded with a woven-rag rug he'd completed himself fifty years earlier when the polar-bear rug that was in the room when he'd arrived finally wore through. The quilt on the big four-poster feather bed, though, was the same, and the same gold and red and green blocks shone back at him as those that covered this bed when he took the job of head elf. Surely, the quilt was just a bit worse for wear, and the colors made just a bit darker by stains of cocoa and something a bit more vital than cocoa, even to elves . . . but it didn't matter. He'd miss his rug, his plans, and his siblings, but not that damned bed, or that horrific quilt. Suddenly enraged, Bernard gathered the quilt under him in both fists, stood quickly and tore it off his bed. With a fancy bit of footwork managed to manipulate it around his front, and directly onto Judy's head.  
  
"I'm not even going to ask," the female elf sighed, her voice muffled by the batting.  
  
"Sorry, Jude," he snickered, falling back onto the flannel sheets. "I just..."  
  
"It's not something you're ready to tell anyone?" She asked, peeking out from under the corner  
of the cover.  
  
"More than that, Judy . . . I, mean, shit happens to us, but we aren't really, you know, REAL, right? And all this going into the world as a whole kinda has me. . . Well, scared," he sighed, staring at the same ceiling that had greeted him every morning and sent him off every night for over eighteen centuries.  
  
"Well, 'generally, by the time you are Real, most of your hair has been loved off, and your eyes drop out and you get loose in your joints and very shabby. But these things don't matter at all, because once you are Real you can't be ugly, except to people who don't understand,'" Judy quoted.  
  
"Thank you, rocking horse," Bernard laughed, rolling onto his stomach and staring at the younger elf.  
  
"Seriously, Bernard, don't worry about it. You're going to be missed, but you're getting the chance to go out there again after how long? You're the only one who's old enough to look the same age as a human adult, and come on! You'll get to see spring leaves again! Hear birds! Fall in love, maybe!" Judy swirled about the room as she said this, hair and quilt dancing around her. Bernard's eyes followed her, then rolled as she "swooned" onto the bed during the last part of the statement, which consisted of jumping three feet into the air and landing nearly on top of him. "It'll be great!"  
  
Bernard snorted at the last comment, and buried his face in his arms.  
  
"Just enjoy the time you're there, okay?" Judy asked, patting his shoulder. He shuddered slightly under her touch but otherwise remained perfectly still. "You might learn something new, but you'll never know until you try."  
  
"Think so?" He asked, face nestled in the mattress.  
  
"Know so. Now get your rear in gear, buddy! Those college offices won't wait all day!"  
  
"Wha...?" Bernard asked, turning his head again to the smaller elf. For a few moments, he watched her feet swing back and forth, back and forth, dangling two feet above the ground and still wrapped along with the rest of her in that damned quilt. Bernard recalled one time last year he'd gone to a "Taco Bell" restaurant, against his will but watching Charlie for Santa and planning to give the boy his father's congratulations for a job well done in the arts fair, and decided Judy looked like a Christmas elf burrito. The thought made him snicker.  
  
"What's this about the college offices? I thought I was staying off-campus..." Bernard asked the younger elf.  
  
"Nope," Judy gloated cheerfully. "On-campus, in a dorm, and please don't scowl. You got a private room. That's part of what I'm here to tell you."  
  
"And the other part?" Bernard asked, pushing himself to a seated position and reaching for his hot cocoa.  
  
"Well, you won't have to worry about drinking their cocoa. I've gotten permission from Santa to use just enough magic to send you a thermos of mine every week. If you want it hot after the first day, just learn to use the microwave."  
  
"I can't just magic it warm myself?"  
  
"No magic!" Judy scolded. "And remember..."  
  
"If you let people see your ears, have an excuse. 'Green vegetables' isn't going to cut it. Do NOT under any circumstances dress dramatically different than your classmates when it can beavoided. 'Too warm' means it can be avoided," Bernard muttered, rattling off the warning Santa gave him earlier in a perfect impression.  
  
"You got it," Judy laughed, wrapping the arm closer to him around his back for a hug and pulling playfully on one of his curls with her other hand.  
  
"All right, all right," Bernard sighed, catching the hand doing the tugging, carefully disentangling it from his hair, and gently placing it back in Judy's lap. "I better get going, then."  
  
He slid from the bed and knelt by the duffel bag where it fell when he attacked the quilt. Carefully, he tucked a few extra items into it: his favorite pen, his most recent pencil set (already worn down to nubs by constant use), his usual hat...  
  
Satisfying himself that he had everything he wanted and needed, he shouldered the bag, held a hand out for Judy, and with a "come on, sis", walked out the door with the younger elf beside him, a hand around her shoulders.  
  
A/N: Just something to introduce you to the whys and wherefores of Bernard's being in the "non-believers'" world. Oh, and Bernard and Judy aren't really siblings. Most of the elves aren't. He just happens to think highly of the "Naughty-and-Nice" elf as a friend. The story Judy quotes is "The Velveteen Rabbit". 


	2. Notes

Notes:  
  
Hellcat: To me, Bernard isn't the sort of person I think can just take time off to do nothing whatsoever. He has to keep himself busy, for reasons I hope to explain later, if I stay on-topic. College is something that is both strange and new for me personally so I think I'd be curious to see what Bernard does in a situation where he's forced to live, work, and learn with people toward whom he is cautious and toward whom he feels some degree of disgust.  
  
Shmelia: My college self says hello to your college self! I was actually thinking of starting this fic as soon as I got out of SC2, but your fic being here first gave me the courage to actually write and put it up. Don't worry, your fic isn't worse (or, by the same token, too much better) than the rest. Just different. I mean, in the second chapter, I was kinda afraid of Bernard. He seemed like such a.... a... Oh, holly berries! ;-) I think you know what he seemed like. Interesting explanation of why, though.  
I thought of the elves having a relationship that's personal as well as business because, the way I look at it, they're all trapped under the ice dome at the Pole, so it's logical that the elves with which one spends most of one's time are the ones with whom one is most close. After a few hundred years, business friendships turn to real friendships. Real friendships turn to family-like relationships, especially in the situation in which Bernard finds himself. What situation is that? You'll have to wait and see, because that's where it's going, it isn't good, and that's all I'll say!  
  
Silverclaw Rose: "'Do NOT under any circumstances dress dramatically different than your classmates when it can be avoided. 'Too warm' means it can be avoided,'" is the entire quote, and what I mean by that is that, to my way of thinking, all the skinny elves need more than just velvet to keep them warm at the Pole. Even Judy's hot cocoa is probably just a factor, so Christmas elves must "logically" (to my way of thinking) have different tolerances toward heat and cold than humans, built up over the centuries. Therefore, the North Pole is on the cold end of comfortable. New England/New York April or early May seems to them like something around July in this region, and therefore will be uncomfortable for Bernard. Lots of fun ahead! ;-)  
  
AARGH! I forgot! Bernard needs a last name! He's only listed on IMDb as "Bernard" and "Bernard, the Arch Elf". "Archelf" isn't the sort of last name I'm going for. Any ideas? 


End file.
